In a previous study, we drew a portrait of Ligue 1 club fans on Facebook, revealing audiences concentrated around a few clubs. A minority of users were behind most of the content-based comments, and the engaging behaviors of these audiences reflected different levels of attachment to clubs. It seemed essential to us to renew the experience, by focusing our attention on the video productions of clubs, and the main broadcasters of football in France.
That is why we have put together a dataset of 7.446 videos and 500.468 comments involving 137,278 reviewers, from Ligue 1 club channels, and from 6 broadcasters and leading football institutions in France, during the 2017 - 2018 season.
During this championship season, only 13 clubs were active on YouTube. We observe a very high concentration of production on a few channels, with very large differences in terms of operational excellence (mastery of best practices, innovative nature of content, etc.). Each club has its own content publication strategy. However, the common objective of clubs is to maintain a “direct” relationship with their fan bases, and to develop their brand images by appropriating territories of expression that go beyond the promotion of their sporting performances. The “best players” stand out by creating content formats inspired by the media. Even if the usual summaries of matches and interviews with players represent the majority of the videos published, clubs are venturing into other fields: teasers, humorous videos, behind the scenes of training, marketing moments,...
The main findings of this study
#1 - Clubs take over pre-match territory, increasing the number of speeches before the matches, while the broadcasters mobilize after the matches. The comments posted under the club videos are similar to epidermal reactions (short, emotionally charged...), unlike the controversial comments posted under the videos of the broadcasters (high response rates, lexical richness...).
#2 - PSG is the most successful club thanks to a diversified editorial line. In fact, he deploys a discourse that goes beyond the communication of his sports performances, by presenting behind the scenes of the club, by adopting the codes of the marketing moment or influential Youtubers.
#3 - The Ligue 1 channel promotes the visibility of clubs on digital, especially since most clubs are not very efficient, or even completely absent from YouTube. The Ligue 1 channel mainly broadcasts summaries of matches or compilations of game facts. Thus, all clubs are represented homogeneously in the videos.
#4 - Broadcasters, and in particular the Ligue 1 channel, allow clubs to engage a much larger audience than on their own channels. Thus, OL hired more than 7570 commentators during the season on the Ligue 1 channel, while it had only activated 195 on its own channel.
#5 - The community manager plays a driving role in audience engagement. However, clubs have not built strong relational strategies. Only Téléfoot and the FFF have active community managers.
>>Access the full study <<
[emaillocker id="76"]
[/emaillocker]
The broadcast of Soccer on YouTube From The Metrics Factory
Interested in these results? Find our study on Ligue 1 fans on Facebook, as well as our Sponsorship observatory during the 2018 World Cup.
A study carried out by Chandrache Golion, Quentin Gressien, Clément Joffrin and Erwan Le Nagard.
